Week 08 | Tuesday | Mark 10:10-22

As Jesus looked at him, he felt love for him 

Until now, I had the feeling that Jesus words to the young man were a rebuke but as I slow down and read, he looked at him with love. Who or what do I choose to serve? Do I serve Jesus or do I serve my possessions? 🤔

Something that just stood out to me, is that this young man approaches Jesus much like others in previous chapters who have had great need for healing: running up and falling to his knees.

Maybe this is just a more common kind of thing? Like the culture is just generally more expressive than what I am used to (also thinking about the paid grief wailers)...

BUT - Just interesting to me. He has a need just like others, but it's not one Jesus can "heal" with a touch... It is a lacking that must be obtained by giving away what he has.

Posted by: @travisbruno3

Something that just stood out to me, is that this young man approaches Jesus much like others in previous chapters who have had great need for healing: running up and falling to his knees.

Maybe this is just a more common kind of thing? Like the culture is just generally more expressive than what I am used to (also thinking about the paid grief wailers)...

This culture was far more expressive in terms of physically displaying acts of honor. Bowing and prostrating would be expected in certain environments and situations where honor was given to another person, particularly to someone who was a 'patron' from whom a 'client' was asking for something. Several traditional honor-shame, patron-client cultures in the world today still retain elements of this.

BUT - Just interesting to me. He has a need just like others, but it's not one Jesus can "heal" with a touch... It is a lacking that must be obtained by giving away what he has.

So, so good!

Some contextual thoughts on the passage from today regarding children: Children in the first-century were not idealized or romanticized as they are in today's culture. Children had no status, no possessions, were seen as ignorant and offering little or nothing to the adult world. Adela Yarbro Collins, in her commentary on Mark, writes:

The rabbis debated whether children would be raised from the dead and included in the age to come. Rabban Gamliel argued that the children of the impious in Israel would have no share in the age to come. Rabbi Joshua argued that they would. The rabbis agreed that the children of non-Israelites would neither be raised nor judged. They debated what age an Israelite child had to have reached before death in order to be included in the age to come. One taught that all who had been born would be included; another, only those who had begun to speak; another, from the time when they could answer “Amen” in the synagogue with understanding; another, from the time when they are circumcised. Near the end of the collection of rabbinic views, the opinion that all those who have been born are included is restated. The passage ends with the declaration by Rabbi Elꜥazar, that even children who have been miscarried will be raised; he based his opinion on a midrashic reading of Isa 49:6.

The fact that the rabbis needed to engage in such a debate and the portrayal of the disciples as not wanting Jesus to be bothered with children both indicate the relatively low status of children in the ancient world in comparison with adults. Jesus’ indignation and his statement that “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” indicate not only that children are included in the kingdom of God but also that they represent the type of person who is especially associated with the kingdom of God (cf. Mark 9:33–37). The perspective here is analogous to that expressed in the beatitudes of Luke and Matthew. In Luke 6:20–21, the kingdom of God belongs especially to the poor, the hungry, and those who weep. In Matt 5:5, it belongs, among others, to the meek.

Mark: A Commentary, 471
Hermeneia, vol 62, 2007

Go, sell whatever you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.

The idea of 'treasure in heaven' was a well-known concept in Judaism. It essentially referred to those who through charitable giving to those in need were, by their compassion and good deeds, storing up for themselves treasure in the World to Come.

From Tobit, an intertestamental work found in the Apocrypha:

  “Revere the Lord all your days, my son, and refuse to sin or to transgress his commandments. Live uprightly all the days of your life, and do not walk in the ways of wrongdoing; for those who act in accordance with truth will prosper in all their activities. To all those who practice righteousness give alms from your possessions, and do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practice it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High."

Tobit 4.5–11 NRSV, emphasis added

From 2 Esdras/4 Ezra, another Apocryphal work:

He answered me and said, “I will show you that also, but do not include yourself with those who have shown scorn, or number yourself among those who are tormented. For you have a treasure of works stored up with the Most High, but it will not be shown to you until the last times.

2 Esdras/4 Ezra 7.76–77 NRSV, emphasis added

 

This idea is also found elsewhere in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament:

  “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy [a semitic idiom for 'if you are generous'], your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is bad [a semitic idiom for 'if you are stingy'], your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 

Matthew 6.19–24 NRSV, emphasis added

In Luke, Jesus is recorded as not only telling the 'rich young ruler,' but also, in another passage, all of his followers ('little flock') to sell their possessions and give to the poor, equating this with having 'treasure in heaven':

  “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Luke 12.32–34 NRSV, emphasis added

Paul instructs Timothy:

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

1 Timothy 6.17–19 NRSV, emphasis added

 

...the man looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.

In the world, we assume that wealth brings happiness. However, the reality may be the opposite. Many New Testament passages have hard things to say about wealth and its impact.

Paul says to Timothy:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

(1Timothy 6.10 NRSV)

Earlier in Mark, Jesus warned that worldly wealth and the concerns of this life choke out the message of the gospel:

And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.

(Mark 4.18–19 NRSV)

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus laments for those who are wealthy:

 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

(Luke 6.24–25 NRSV)

James says the following to his readers/listeners:

Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and the rich in being brought low, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away ... and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? ...  Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

(James 1:9-10; 2.3–7; 4.17–5.4 NRSV)

 

 

John writes to his readers:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.

(1John 2.15–17 NRSV, emphasis added)

In telling the rich young man to 'go, sell your possessions and give to the poor,' Jesus was not telling him to do something that Jesus himself had not done (and continues to do).

When encouraging/challenging the Corinthian believers to be generous, Paul notes that the model for radical generosity is Jesus:

I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

(2 Corinthians 8.8–9 NRSV, emphasis added)